Sign of the Cross

by Chris Kuzneski

  ‘What kind of clue?’ asked the Spanish cardinal who was taking notes.

  ‘They didn’t say. But they hinted that their price would escalate as the clues advanced. They also threatened to harm a Council member so we would take them seriously.’

  He glanced around the room, letting his words sink in. Everyone knew what had happened to Father Jansen, the priest who used to take the minutes at every meeting. Still, this was the first time that his death was put in the appropriate context. Jansen had been killed as a warning.

  ‘If they had chosen one of you,’ Benito said, referring to the cardinals on the Council, ‘there would have been a full investigation by the CDF, Vatican security, and the Italian police. Financial accounts would’ve been locked, and we would’ve been forced to issue a statement. By choosing Father Jansen, they got their point across without making a major scene.’

  Vercelli cleared his throat. ‘If you think crucifying Father Jansen isn’t a major scene –’

  ‘Not compared to a cardinal. Believe me, it could’ve been much worse. What if they had chosen you instead? Don’t you think that would’ve received more publicity than Father Jansen? His murder, as brazen as it was, let us know that we were dealing with professionals. These weren’t street hoodlums looking to make a quick buck. These were men who knew the inner workings of the Vatican. Men who knew our system. Men who we should fear.’

  Vercelli stated, ‘Which is why I called you on Monday. With your intimate knowledge of the criminal mind, I figured you’d be the man to stop the bleeding. At least that was my hope.’

  Benito ignored the insult. He’d deal with Vercelli later. ‘We received our third note on Monday, twelve hours after Father Jansen was discovered. Their asking price went up to 1.1 billion dollars. The message stated that four people would be crucified in the four corners of the world, each one bringing more attention to the sins of the Church – sins that we buried in Orvieto.’

  ‘Orvieto?’ asked the Austrian cardinal, the youngest member of the Council. He’d been brought in when Bandolfo passed away. ‘What did we bury in Orvieto?’

  ‘The past,’ the Spaniard grumbled. ‘We buried the past.’

  While the cardinals whispered among themselves, Vercelli sensed the opportunity to make a speech. He was well-versed in Church history and liked to show off his knowledge.

  ‘When the papacy split in two, the holy father found shelter in the hills of Orvieto. He stayed there, secretly, for many years and was often joined by the wealthiest families in Europe, Catholics who feared for their lives due to their alignment with us. As you might imagine, the demand for those spots was very high, exceeding the space available. In time, the Church brokered a compromise: entrance to the city was sold to the highest bidder.

  ‘Later, once the factions settled and the papacy returned to Rome, there was plenty of rancor between the sides, enough to pressure the Church into making some questionable decisions. You see, while these wealthy patrons were hiding in Orvieto, dozens of them passed away. Something needed to be done with the bodies, so the Church stored them in a series of ancient tunnels that we’d found hidden in the plateau.’

  The Austrian gasped. ‘The Catacombs of Orvieto?’

  Vercelli nodded. ‘Over the years, the legend picked up a wave of momentum. What was nothing more than an underground mausoleum grew into a tomb of mythical proportions.’

  ‘Come, come,’ the Brazilian teased. ‘That isn’t true, and you know it. You have been telling the same story for so many years that you’re starting to confuse our fiction with the real facts.’ He turned toward the Austrian. ‘We have no one to blame but ourselves. If we had come clean in the very beginning, we would have ended the myth once and for all. The Italian cardinals wanted to protect the secrecy of Orvieto, just in case another schism occurred and we were forced back into hiding. The only way to do that was to pretend that they were never there. And it was that denial that got them into trouble.’

  ‘In what way?’ the Austrian asked.

  ‘In every way! We are the Catholic Church, not the U.S. Senate. We simply don’t know how to lie. I’m telling you, it will be our downfall.’

  Everyone laughed, thankful for some humor in an otherwise tense meeting.

  But Vercelli ended the levity. ‘The problem occurred when the families left Orvieto. They hoped to bury their ancestors in their family plots, just like they’d done for centuries. However, the decision makers at the Vatican felt it would be in everyone’s best interest if the bodies remained in the Catacombs, at least until the Church was sure that the schism was settled.’

  The Brazilian chirped in. ‘Simply put, we kept the bodies as ransom. The families promised to stay quiet about Orvieto, and we promised to guard their loved ones for eternity. At least that’s what we told them. Two months later the main entrance collapsed, and we didn’t have the manpower to rebuild it. That’s when we decided to wash our hands of everything. From that point on, the Catacombs no longer existed to the Roman Catholic Church. We eliminated them from our records and denied that they had ever existed in the first place.’

  ‘Just like that?’ the Austrian asked.

  The Brazilian nodded. ‘You must remember, all of this took place several hundred years ago, well before any of us were born. I’m sure the holy father had a good reason for his decision, one that undoubtedly helped us get through the greatest period of turmoil in our history.’

  Vercelli glanced around the room, making sure no one had anything else to say. ‘The question we must ask ourselves is whether we need to keep this secret for any longer. I, for one, don’t understand why anyone would think that this story was worth a billion dollars. Furthermore, I don’t understand why Benito was unable to handle this problem on his own.’

  He stared down the table at Benito. ‘As far as I can tell, you’re the only person who stands to lose anything here, since you put your reputation on the line years ago when you swore to the media that the Catacombs never existed… Isn’t that right?’

  The temperature in the room seemed to rise several degrees as the cardinals waited for Benito’s retort. They knew he would say something – probably loud and persuasive – but none of them could’ve anticipated his response. Never in a million years did they expect Benito to turn on them and attack everything that they stood for. Never in their wildest dreams did they expect to hear something so scandalous that it made a billion dollars seem like the bargain of the century. Then again, none of them knew the secret that he possessed.

  Or how long he had been waiting to use it.

  53

  Dr Boyd paced around Ulster’s office, trying to comprehend the mandrake carving on the archway. If Maria’s discovery was legitimate, then they were close to proving the biggest fraud of all time. Close to shattering an entire belief system. Close to killing the most popular religion on the planet. And the anxiety was starting to get to him.

  ‘Don’t you see what this means?’ he barked at no one in particular. ‘The Romans were the ones who started Christianity. Not the apostles or the Jews or even Jesus himself, but the bloody Romans! Can you believe that? Tiberius actually pulled this off.’

  Payne said, ‘But why? Why would Tiberius do this? That still doesn’t make sense to me.’

  Boyd stopped moving. ‘Tell me, my boy, what do you know about organized religion?’

  ‘Religion? It’s a set of beliefs that a person has about God.’

  Boyd nodded. ‘And what do you know about the origin of religion?’

  ‘Not much. I know the basics about Christ from Sunday school but nothing more.’

  ‘Actually, my boy, I didn’t mean Christianity. I was referring to the origin of religion, not the genesis of a particular faith… Do you know why religion was started? To put it simply, religion was created for control. At the rudimentary level, religion is simply an organized system of control used by the upper hierarchy to keep the masses in line. Consequently, he who possesses the ear of God is a very po
werful man.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Payne conceded.

  ‘Yes, it does. So much so that men of intelligence have been using this for centuries, wielding the wrath of God as a weapon and using it to achieve supremacy over the masses. Of course this method of control isn’t permanent, for the world has a way of changing everything over time. Evolution, war, and technology have played their parts during history, eroding the fabric of society just enough to make sure that nothing human is permanent.

  ‘Hundreds of years passed before ancient Egypt crumbled and with it its widespread belief that Ra was the creator of the universe. Then came the Greeks and their notion of Zeus. The Incas had Viracocha. The Mayans had Hunab Ku. The Vikings had Odin and the great hall of Valhalla. Each of these deities was revered for centuries by legions of devoted followers, yet today they’re viewed by society as antiquated notions from our uncivilized forefathers.’

  ‘Out of curiosity,’ Payne wondered, ‘what does any of that have to do with Tiberius?’

  ‘Everything, my boy, everything! You see, the religious structure of ancient Rome came directly from Greece, stolen from the heights of Mount Olympus. In fact, there’s a term, interpretatio Romana, meaning the Roman understanding of things. Its roots can be traced to the third century bc, when the Romans pilfered the Greeks’ religion and made it their own. One minute Zeus was the ruler of the cosmos, the next it was Jupiter – same god with a new Roman name. Poseidon became Neptune, Hades became Pluto, Eros became Cupid, and so on.’

  Boyd looked around the room to make sure that everyone understood.

  ‘Of course this type of transition has an incubation period. Just because a government wants its people to follow its official religion doesn’t mean they’re going to do it – especially since most Roman citizens weren’t even born in Rome. You see, ancient Rome was the original melting pot, a merging of several different cultures under one imperial flag. Alas, unlike the United States where its people longed to come to America, most families in the Empire had no choice. The Greeks, Gauls, Britons, and Jews were all conquered and assimilated into the Roman culture, as were the Egyptians, Illyrians, and Armenians. My Lord, by the time Tiberius came into rule in 14 ad, the Empire stretched from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.’

  ‘The lands of snow and sun,’ Maria stated. ‘That’s what Tiberius wrote in the scroll. He said Rome needed to do something drastic because the Empire had gotten too large for its own good.’

  Payne asked, ‘And the something drastic was to fake the crucifixion of Christ?’

  Boyd nodded, glad that Payne was starting to grasp the big picture. ‘As I mentioned earlier, men of intelligence have used the power of religion for centuries. It’s one thing to threaten the masses with punishments of the flesh; it’s quite another to threaten eternal damnation. Tiberius was never able to wield this ultimate power since most Roman peasants – especially those who lived on the fringes of the Empire – never believed in the same gods as he. Therefore, he never fully had control over them. Or their wealth.’

  ‘OK,’ Payne said, ‘now I’m beginning to understand. The only way he could unite everyone was to get them to support the same thing. And since they’d never unite for the sake of Rome, he knew he had to give them an alternative. Something they could believe in.’

  Boyd nodded. ‘Tiberius started Christianity for one reason only: to gain control. He knew all about the unrest in Judea and figured the best way to placate the Jews was to give them the Messiah that had been prophesied. Then, once the Jews started to believe in Christ, he was going to take their Messiah away, which would allow him to grab control of this new religion.’

  ‘But how?’ Ulster asked. ‘Wouldn’t Jesus have to be in on things?’

  Boyd shook his head. ‘Not if they drugged him like Jonathon suggested. Think about it. Jesus would have awoken in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and his disciples would’ve told him that he had died on the cross and the Lord brought him back. Furthermore, if skeptics needed evidence of Jesus’s identity, they could’ve done what was described in the Bible – because that part of the crucifixion probably wasn’t faked.’

  According to John 20:25–27, Thomas told the disciples that he wouldn’t believe in Christ’s resurrection until he could place his finger in the holes of Jesus’s palms and his hand in the wound in Jesus’s side. Eight days later Jesus reappeared, giving doubting Thomas the opportunity.

  ‘OK,’ Payne said. ‘Let’s pretend you’re accurate. Tiberius faked Christ’s death for the good of the Empire. What would he have done next?’

  Maria answered for Boyd. ‘After giving them their new God, Tiberius planned to strengthen their unity by giving them a common enemy to fight against.’

  ‘A common enemy? What enemy?’

  ‘Rome,’ she answered. ‘Tiberius actually wanted them to unite against the Empire.’

  Boyd smiled at the irony. ‘Don’t you see? For this to work, Rome couldn’t roll over and play dead. They had to fight back with everything – or in this case what Tiberius allowed them to fight with – or else people would’ve caught on. That’s one of the main reasons that he wanted Paccius to run things in Jerusalem. Not only could he trust him, but he knew his general had the experience to throw a battle or two to Christianity, which in turn would be a victory for Rome.’

  Payne shook his head in disgust, staring at the photo of the stallions. He couldn’t imagine riding into battle on such a magnificent beast, fighting side by side with his armor-clad men, knowing full well he wasn’t supposed to win.

  ‘Of course,’ Boyd theorized, ‘Tiberius would’ve required a long-term plan if he wanted the Empire to profit from any of this, for the switch to Christianity wouldn’t have happened overnight. In fact, it took three centuries before Rome actually made it their official religion.’

  ‘Did you say centuries?’

  He nodded, letting that fact sink into Payne’s head. ‘That meant Tiberius couldn’t have pulled this off alone. He had to have a partner in this, someone who was in Judea at the time of Christ’s death. Moreover, Tiberius knew if the Empire was ever going to profit from this scam, he had to notify his line of successors of the entire plot and pray that they kept the ruse up long enough for it to take hold. Otherwise, everything would’ve been for naught.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Jones suggested, ‘that’s the reason Tiberius built the Catacombs in the first place? Maybe he built them to protect his secret. That would explain why he made them so damn grand. It would’ve convinced future emperors that Rome had invested quite a bit in this plan, no matter how outrageous it seemed. And if they stayed the course, they had even more to gain.’

  Maria looked at him, impressed. ‘That’s not half bad.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Boyd concurred. ‘Of course that doesn’t mean that his successors followed his wishes. Recorded documents prove that Tiberius feared for his safety during the last few years of his life. Consequently, he left Rome and lived on Capri, a tiny island off the western coast of Italy, until his death. During that time he only talked to his most trusted advisors, and later they admitted that he went a little crazy toward the end. Who knows? Maybe his bout of insanity prevented future emperors from taking Tiberius’s plot seriously?’

  ‘Which means what?’ Payne asked.

  ‘Which means we’ve hit another roadblock. Right now there are three distinct possibilities in my mind. And as far as I can tell, we’re lacking evidence to prove any of them.’

  ‘Three?’

  ‘Yes, three,’ Boyd assured Payne. ‘Number one, everything went as Tiberius had hoped, and the Empire milked Christianity for three centuries before adopting it as its official religion. Number two, the crucifixion of Christ was faked, but future emperors went against Tiberius’s plot, thereby preventing the Empire from taking full advantage of the anticipated windfall.’

  ‘And number three?’

  ‘The death of Paccius – or another unforeseen obstacle – ended Tiberius’s plan
before it could be carried out, meaning Christ was actually crucified, died, and was buried, then came back to earth to prove that he was, in fact, the Son of God.’

  All of them sat, silent, pondering the final scenario.

  Eventually, Jones cleared his throat and spoke. ‘So what are you saying? We’re stuck?’

  Boyd nodded. ‘It’s starting to look that way. Unless you’re keeping something from us.’

  ‘I wish. But the truth is, my mind is spinning from all of this new information.’ Jones turned toward Payne. ‘What about you, Jon? Are you holding something back?’

  Payne looked up from the photo of the stallions, half stunned by what he had just seen. So he rubbed his eyes and looked at the picture again. ‘Holy crap. I might be holding something back.’

  ‘You are?’

  Nodding, Payne handed him the framed picture. ‘Look at this. What do you see?’

  Jones glanced at the photo. ‘If I’m not mistaken, those are the Lipizzaners… Hey, did I ever tell you the story about General Patton and those horses?’

  Payne rolled his eyes, thankful that he hadn’t brought it up earlier. ‘Come on, D.J., focus! Do you really think this is an appropriate time to talk about Patton and those albino ponies?’

  ‘No,’ he said, embarrassed.

  ‘Tell me, what do you see behind the horses?’

  ‘Behind them?’ He studied the building in the background. ‘I’m not sure. Is that the Hofburg Palace in Vienna?’

  ‘Yes it is. Now look at the artwork on the building.’

  ‘The artwork? Why in the world –’

  ‘Dammit, D.J.! Just look at the picture!’

  The black-and-white photograph showed the horses on their home turf, parading gracefully in the stone courtyard of the Hofburg grounds. Yet Jones had to ignore their magnificence. He had to force his eyes to look beyond the focus of the lens, to search the shadows and crevices of the building itself while ignoring the heart of the picture. Of course, when he came across the image in question, a look of revelation filled his face. ‘Oh my God! Where did you find this?’